Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner) and the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2019, Corrigan was awarded the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle.
Corrigan served as a juror for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her book So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be and Why It Endures was published by Little, Brown in September 2014. Corrigan is represented by Trinity Ray at The Tuesday Lecture Agency: trinity@tuesdayagency.com
Corrigan's literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading! was published in 2005. Corrigan is also a reviewer and columnist for The Washington Post's Book World. In addition to serving on the advisory panel of The American Heritage Dictionary, she has chaired the Mystery and Suspense judges' panel of the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize.
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Dorothy Parker's posthumously published collection is Poems; Camilla Barnes' debut novel is The Usual Desire to Kill. Both affirm: sharp humor can be grounded in pain. -
Great works of art are great, in part, because they continue to have something to say to the present: They're both timebound and timeless. And, boy, does Gatsby have something to say to us in 2025. -
Russell has published excellent short story collections since her 2011 debut novel Swamplandia!, but this is her first novel in nearly 15 years. It follows a "Prairie Witch" in Dust Bowl-era Nebraska. -
Formerly enslaved people would placed ads in newspapers hoping to find lost children, parents, spouses and siblings. Historian Judith Giesberg tells the stories of some of those families in a new book. -
Horwitz died suddenly in 2019 while on a book tour. In Memorial Days, Geraldine Brooks grieves her husband — and also reflects on the life she might have lived had they not met. -
Kay Sohini's graphic memoir, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City, tells a story of migration and redefinition. Gay Talese gathers many of his great pieces about the city in A Town Without Time. -
Adam Haslett's compelling novel focuses on the strained relationship between an asylum lawyer and his mother. It's a beautiful appreciation of the all-too-human mess of life. -
This year, our Fresh Air book critic highlights alternative history, suspense, satire — and some of the most extraordinary letters ever written. Here are Maureen Corrigan's 10 best books of 2024. -
Set in a small Irish village in the weeks leading up to Christmas 1962, Niall Williams' latest novel avoids cliché by investing specificity and life into characters and places. -
Sometimes, the right book shows up just at the right time. Our book critic encountered two such books this week: Water, Water, by Billy Collins, and The Dog Who Followed the Moon, by James Norbury.
